About Recounts

International election standards include, as part of free and fair elections, access to peaceful dispute mechanisms.1

Recounts check the accuracy of reported results. They do not require any specific anomalies, though questionable statistical results sometimes prompt candidates to request recounts.

A different dispute resolution method, called a contest or an appeal, addresses anomalies with litigation. Lawsuits may address irregularities like vote stuffing, vote suppression, provision of wrong ballots, and certain voting machine malfunctions better than recounts, because a discovery process accompanies litigation.

COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS

– Requesting a recount doesn’t require allegations of fraud. A recount simply verifies the count, a basic part of election accountability.

– Characterizing those who seek recounts as “sore losers” or “trying to discredit the system” is inappropriate. Recounts serve to validate the election process.

– A rerun is not the same thing as a recount. However, several states changed statutory definitions of recounts by substituting words calling retabulations “recounts.” A machine retabulation is not a valid way to authenticate results produced by a machine. A true recount compares voter-verified ballots against the machine result.

A candidate can request a recount, though in some states the candidate must meet a threshold in order to qualify.

Voters are the ultimate stakeholder in elections, and can request recounts in some (but not all) jurisdictions. Elections actually belong to the voters, not to candidates or the government. Whether or not voters are given legal standing to request a recount, they have moral standing and should at least be allowed to inspect ballots under right-to-know laws.

Recount deadlines are quite tight, and differ from contest (lawsuit) deadlines. A recount cannot be requested until the election is certified, and then usually must be requested almost immediately. Each jurisdiction varies on timing, who can file, and cost.

Some voting systems, like paperless DRE machines and Internet voting cannot be recounted and are not accountable to the public.

RECOUNT COSTS

Statutory recounts, triggered by close races, do not cost the candidate anything.

Non-mandatory recounts usually involve paying a deposit when making the request. If the recount materially changes a result, the fee should be refunded.

1. Place ballots on a table where all can see.
2. Sort ballots into one stack for each candidate.
3. Deal out ballots from each stack one by one while counting out loud.

WHY A RECOUNT CAN CHANGE THE RESULT

– Election officials sometimes write down the wrong number.
– Sometimes entire precincts, or certain voting machines, are found to be omitted from the count.
– Sometimes a set of votes has been put through twice the first time votes were counted.
– Write-in votes are sometimes incorrectly counted or not counted at all.
– Issues like folded absentee ballots can produce voting machine miscounts.3

Perhaps, but not reliably. Recounts may detect a possibility of fraud, and may detect certain kinds of voting machine miscounts. If the reason for a change of count systematically benefits one candidate or subset of voters, it could be due to fraud. However, only law enforcement has the standing and resources to determine whether criminal intent can be established.

Election officials will typically point to either “human error” or “a software malfunction” to explain discrepancies, but in truth, the issue of intent can rarely be determined. It may be possible to ascertain that intentionality exists, with subpoena power and access to wiretaps and banking records, but this level of investigation is unusual after an election. Occasionally election fraud activities are detected in the course of other corruption investigations.

Some types of election fraud, such as absentee ballot stuffing, are more easily detected than others.

Recounts may detect central tabulator fraud or ballot scanner tampering, but because computerized voting fraud is most easily accomplished by persons with inside access, and the same people may have access to the ballots, they are more likely to use their access to adjust ballots so that they match the count than to allow themselves to be caught by offering up unadjusted recount ballots. For this reason, if doing a recount for the purpose of detecting voting machine tampering observers should focus concurrently, and intensively, on ballot chain of custody.

Any time ballots are transported from one place to another they are at risk for tampering. As ballots are brought out for recount, observers should note whether they are in correct containers, seals are intact, portions of the container can be opened other than the sealed area, whether number of ballots matches number of signed names on participating voter list, and whether ballot storage was documented with surveillance cameras.

ANOTHER FORM OF RECOUNT

Only an official recount can change official election results. However, using freedom of information laws, members of the public can conduct their own recounts.

Time limits are longer for public records inspections than for recounts.

Public records recounts cost less and can evaluate accuracy of the count in a more holistic way, looking at many candidates and also several different kinds of records.

Unofficial recounts can also use ballot images, which are pictures of ballots automatically created by voting machines when they record each ballot. Ballot images are countable either one by one, by human examination, or using open source public software such as that developed by Mitch Trachtenberg for the Humboldt County Transparency Project.

Use of right-to-know laws for ballot inspection has been blocked by some states.5

Despite obstructive actions by some elections officials, one of the most optimistic developments in election transparency is the new area of enabling citizen-initiated recounts, through release of ballot images combined with allowing ballot inpections under public right-to-know law.

Stanislaus County, California set an example for exhorbitant recount fees by charging City of Riverbank mayoral candidate Virginia Madueño $2,000 an hour, more than five times the amount the county charged for its 2008 ‘Measure S’ recount.
See: Ken Carlson: Former Riverbank mayor contests bill for recount, Modesto Bee, 03/14/2013, (original link is now dead; was: http://www.modbee.com/2013/03/14/2622408/former-riverbank-mayor-contests.html ) Relevant excerpts:

“The Stanislaus County election office charged her campaign $10,217 for the Dec. 10 recount, or about $2,000 an hour. …

Sacramento attorney Amber Maltbie, representing Madueño, said the registrar of voters office gave them written statements that the recount would cost $300 an hour, with a $2,400 deposit required each day of the recount.

After the count was cut short the first day, Madueño’s campaign expected that part of the $2,400 deposit from Riverbank Councilwoman Dotty Nygard would be refunded. But they received a county invoice Jan. 25 stating the total cost was $10,217.28.

A $7,817 balance was owed, the letter said.

Maltbie said the figure was more than three times higher than the estimate given twice to Madueño’s campaign.

The cost for the Dec. 10 count was more than five times the amount for the Measure S recount in 2008, which cost $1,875, and likely sets a precedent for what candidates will be charged for recounts in Stanislaus County. …

“Three months after the recount, we are still trying to get to the bottom of it,” said Maltbie of Nossaman LLP. “If it’s permissible to be so incorrect with an initial estimate and the requester is blindsided later, people are not going to exercise their right to a recount. It will have a chilling effect.” …

Maltbie cited recounts in California that cost less, including a rerun of a Tulare County supervisor race costing $4,370 in 2010 and the city of Cathedral’s mayoral recount last year that was terminated after one day, costing $2,800. …

Cost accounting wasn’t so thorough for recounting Measure S, a countywide road tax that almost received two-thirds approval in 2008. The Yes on S Committee made a one-day deposit of $2,500 and stopped the hand count at midday after a check of certain precincts confirmedresults, said Bill Bassitt, the committee’s treasurer.

For example, in a Los Banos Calif. school board election, two incumbents were unseated by just a few votes while hundreds of voters had been given wrong ballots. This caused ineligible votes to be counted and some eligible voters to be unable to cast a vote. A recount does not shed any light on such a miscount.
Thaddeus Miller: Election certified despite errors, Los Banos Enterprise, 12/01/2012, http://www.losbanosenterprise.com/2012/12/01/194866/election-certified-despite-errors.html↩

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